After Shock
by Fandomness
Summary: The Golden Trio and their families aren't the only ones affected by the War. After losing someone close to her Alice loses herself in grief, with an affect no one would have predicted. A Sirius/OC Time Fic. R&R to get more!
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own Harry Potter. That honor goes to J.K. Rowling alone.**

I'll never forget the smell. The reek that pervaded the castle for decades after. The stench of burnt stone and blood, potion fumes and magic, vomit and death. Everything seemed darker after the final battle, as if upon his death Voldemort had released his pent up darkness on the world. The stars were like hooded eyes glaring from the heavens, the smoldering remains of Hagrid's small hut pulsing in the darkness like a heart, gutted from the chest of one of the hundreds of dead bodies that surrounded it. The Hogwarts castle seemed suddenly bent and crippled, showing its centuries of age. The Great Hall seemed smaller then it ever had before, it's floor lined with bodies, laid out like a game of chance. But it didn't matter which card you picked, everywhere you looked, you lost.

I remember standing beneath the massive doors, looking out at the twisted graveyard in front of me. No earth or tombstones to separate you from the corpses that surround you. I remember wondering why? Not why they died, I knew that, and right then it just seemed like a bunch of poetic crap and a guy without a functioning nose. No. I wanted to know why people were celebrating, why they saw this as a victory, why anybody thought we had WON.

There were so many lost people, empty. I walked the line, like a general surveying their troops or, more appropriately a soldier surveying her fallen comrades. The floor was slicked with small puddles of blood, despite magics relatively gore-less property. The line between the wounded and the deceased is blurred, nothing but a few steps between the living and the dead. My ears were stoppered with the wails of the survivors. The tears that tracked down my face burned, too hot for the rest of my empty body to manage, so hot it hurt almost as much as the sobs clawing their way up a throat that's dry and parched with screaming curses. People clung to each other, as if desperate to feel the other person's heart beat against theirs, to breath their living scent, hear their answering sobs. Families clump together, some members just stumbling onto the grounds, searching the crowds for sons or daughters they'd expected to see at the end of the year. And in a way their cries are the worst, the denial, the shattered hope. Faced for the first time with the reality of a war they had tried not to fight.

I don't know when I started looking for her. Not at once. I can't tell you how guilty I feel for that now. That in the face of tragedy I didn't think of her. Didn't look for her amongst the crowd. Didn't think to search for her amongst the bodies. With each second I didn't see her my panic grew, I turned my head at every call, studied every face...you don't think to look for someone among the dead if the last way you saw them was alive. Their face doesn't jump at you like it should, it's not familiar anymore. They've turned into someone else, someone strange, someone you never, NEVER, wanted to meet.

I don't know how many times I looked at her. Scanned her face. But she wasn't there, I never found her. I found a body with her face and people told me that they were sorry, her friends cried with me before returning to their families, everybody told me how wonderful she was, that she had been so brave before she died. But I never saw her. Just a body I barely recognized, just an empty face. My sister was gone.

I don't know what to do anymore. The last year hadn't been about anything except surviving the Dark Lord. Now that he's gone... I feel like my life is suddenly missing something, some key element that held it together in the first place. My body feels too light, stiff, foreign...like it's not quite sure what it wants to be anymore. Not sure if it should keep the heart pumping...or give up like everybody else, evacuate the soul, and have a little peace.

It takes days to sort out the bodies. To connect families with the people they lost. Nobody wanders far from the Great Hall while everything's getting sorted. Maybe they feel like it's not over, that they need the strength that numbers provide, maybe they just don't want to be alone. Maybe, like me, they just don't know what to do at all...

There's no one to take the body away, the familiar body...we didn't have parents, Amy and me. Found out about Hogwarts and were just sort of adopted by the school. Raised by the teachers. Returning to the 'home' only at the end of the year. Or later if we could help it. We got close with Hagrid, he was always willing to talk with us, never too busy to help. He was the one that introduced me to Care of Magical Creatures as a career option way back in my first year. I'd always loved animals, and the magical beasts of the Wizarding world were all beautiful and fascinating. I would have taken a hippogriff home if they'd have let me. There weren't a lot of people who understood that...Amy was one of them. She preferred books and people and music, but when I was alone and I needed her, needed someone to fawn with me over baby unicorns, or gush at the portraits of dragons and Pegasi, she'd been more then willing to spare some time. She'd kept me connected to people, her friends were my friends, as long as she was there to mediate. Now, as I sat in a hall crowded with grief I was all alone. Nobody was looking for me, I didn't spring forward as important in anyone's mind. Except Amy's. I never told her how much I appreciated it. And now she was gone, and all I had left was a stranger's corpse and a short life of memories.

I blinked my eyes open as a shadow fell across my lap. I hadn't slept in days, my eyes were stiff and sore, my back ached from resting on the hard floor. The body beside me is starting to get ripe, despite the charms that had been placed on it. Amy would have known what to do with it, where to put it, who to call. I could only sit and use it for company, while I waited for my sister to show up. I just don't understand why she isn't here. She should be. But she's not, only the body. The bloody reeking BODY. Another tsunami of tears washes down my face, moistening the salt stains that already decorate it. I don't know where they come from, my eyes are so dry already it hurts to blink, my throat parched and ragged from the sobs I haven't been able to stop. Amy could've stopped them, would've known just what to say.

"Alice?"

I looked up as the gentle voice floated down to me, churning my gut because it was just so wrong, it wasn't her voice, she still hadn't come, I was still alone. Still waiting. The Golden Trio stood in front of me, there faces showing the signs of their weeping, despite the half week that had passed. I hadn't known any of them. Only known of them. We'd shared a dorm for six years, a common room, classes, all of us Gryffindors together. But we'd never officially talked. Hermione and Amy had been half friends, she'd told me. They ran into each other often while studying late into the night, sitting together in the quiet, sharing a few words, debating... maybe Hermione had seen my sister? Maybe she knew where she was?

"Alice?" she sunk into a crouch, the boys shifting awkwardly behind her. Why were they here? It took me awhile to remember. They'd been going around, staying with everybody for a while, sharing in the tears that were flooding the floor. I guess it was my turn now. "Have you been to see Madame Pomfrey Alice?"

Madame Pomfrey? Why would I need to see her? Did she know where Amy was? Or did she know what I was supposed to do with this body that they'd left me with? Could she take it away? Vaguely I saw Hermione glance between her two friends, her face concerned. What was wrong? Was it Amy? I should ask...

My voice is raw as I force it up my throat, like a ball of steel wool dragging across my pharynx. I blink at her slowly, feeling how it hurts.

"H-have you ss-s-een her?" my face is burning from the moisture tracking down it, so hot I wish'd I could take some of the heat and put it back in my chest where it belonged. "Ha-ave you ss-een my sister? Have you seen A-Amy?" something in her face cracks and she looks as broken as I feel, though not as empty. She's still got something in her face, in her eyes, something I need... need so bad. But I don't know what it is, and I don't want to take it from her. The Trio share another look, just as indecipherable as the last, Hermione turns back to me, reaching out so slowly to tip my face towards hers, staring into my eyes softly.

"Alice...where's your parents? Have they come?" there's something their not saying. I can feel it. They keep glancing at the body, though there's nothing to see, just a vast white sheet someone had bothered to lay on top. I start shaking my head, Amy had always been the parent figure... the one who took charge. The serious one. While I'd been immature and crazy... she'd never seemed to mind. But maybe that was why she wasn't back yet? Maybe she'd gotten tired of caring for me...

"No parents." I croaked, burying my face into my arms, wiping my tears on fabric that used to be soft.

"Aunt then? Or cousin? Some distant relation." her face was getting pinched with concern.

I kept my head shaking, it seemed easier then talking.

"No one?" that was Harry. I almost laughed with absurdity of talking to Harry Potter, the savior of all the Wizarding world, moseying over to ask about my relatives. But I didn't. Couldn't. There would be no laughter for a long time yet... not from anyone left here.

"Just Amy." I sound like a frog...or a troll with a cold. I don't want to talk. Why can't Amy be here to talk for me? Why did she leave? Where did she go? Why can't somebody take this _stupid_ body? When am I going to run out of tears? Hermione gives some sort of exclamation of sympathy and wraps her arms about me, squeezing hard. I don't squeeze back, just press my face into her shoulder. The fabric is soft, clean smelling. I wonder how she managed that? Amy could've told me. Hermione drew away and I wondered if my time was up, if they were going to move on to the next people in the line. But she gave no sign of rising, and the boys seemed to have gotten comfortable where they were.

"Where do you go at the end of summer?" She pried gently.

"Used to go to the home..." I've giving up looking at them, I'm too tired. My head won't stay up anymore.

"But?" Harry again, Ron is so quiet.

"Too old now." I'm so tired...the last four days are catching up to me, weighing against my eyelids, prickling down my arms, chewing on my spine.

"So where will you go?"

Somehow I manage to shake my head.

"Amy knows."

The silence has become exceptionally strained all of a sudden, but I don't raise my head to see why. I finally hear Ron mumble something, but it sounds like 'But she's dead' and that can't be true. I've finally begun to think that maybe they'll leave now, but then Harry speaks again, almost timid.

"You...could come to Grimmauld Place...for awhile? Till you figure it out?"

And I don't know what else I'm going to do, not without Amy. And anything seems better then staying by this Body on the hard cold floor so I agree.

"But only until Amy shows up."

**Hopefully this will be Chapter 1 of a multi-Fic if you guys like it enough. If you want to know what happens next, review! Tell me what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I do not own Harry Potter, this is an in progress story and the main character, (Sirius) may change! A very and extreme thank you to my wonderful new Beta****GeorgeWeasley'sEar!**

It takes another week for everything to quiet down into an echo of normalcy. Hogwarts has been cleaned and patched, families have been united and the grounds have been cleared of Death Eaters and the ashes of Hagrid's hut. The Body is finally gone, someone took it away, someone else took me with it and I watched them lower it into the ground. People stood up and talked about Amy. How wonderful she was. If she was really so wonderful, then where was she? Where did she go and leave me behind? People keep touching me, patting my back, shaking my hand, crushing me into a hug. I wish they'd stop. My clothes are still filthy and rough and I'm starting to feel hunger in the tips of my fingers. I know what I should do about that...but I can't seem to remember.

Madame Pomfrey comes after the Body is gone and fusses around me. She makes lots of 'tsking' noises, and soothing coos. Calls me 'dear'. It's been a while since someone said my name. Not since the Golden Trio. I wish she would. Just so I could hear it, remember what it was. But she doesn't, it's just 'dear'. She wants to take my clothes off, raises her wand to do so, but I'm not sure I want her to. It makes me uncomfortable to think of parting with them, this is Amy's shirt, I can't loose it. But she insists and I can't fight her. There's already been too much of that. So she Vanishes my clothes and I hear her gasp.

"Oh, dear, why didn't you come sooner?" she frowns at me and shakes her head. "I know you've suffered a terrible loss," her face gets sad and cloudy, "we all have. But it's know excuse to let yourself go. This must hurt, Alice."

Alice. Yes. That's my name. I was beginning to wonder if I'd lost it like I did Amy. Madame Pomfrey is making a lot of 'tsk'ing noises now, and frowning hard.

Her hands flutter around me but she hasn't touched anything since removing my clothes. Her face is pinched with concern.

"Oh dear." she wrings her hands. "I'm not sure what I can do about this Alice." she reaches out a hand and I follow her eyes. I've got...a stain, down my side. At least I think it's a stain. It can't be anything else. It's red and purple and black, and even though it doesn't move, it seems to ooze down my leg. Seeing it pricks something in my brain...which pricks something in my side and before I know it I'm burning. I suck in a shocked breath as I feel my eyes blow wide, and my ears are ringing as someone around me screams, a long drawn, torturous wail I haven't heard since the war ended. It's only when my lungs ache and I see dark spots in my eyes that I realize it's me. The sound breaks away as I fight to breathe. Madame Pomfrey is talking, more senseless words of comfort. She pushes me to lie on my uninjured side, her wand waving, face darkening more and more with whatever it's telling her. There are tears in my eyes and I don't fight them as they fall. All the pain of the last few days coming together to crush me. The sleepless nights and lonely days, the ache of the battle and the raging agony in my side, everything seems multiplied till the days before the battle seem like nothing but the lingering edge of a dream.

Madame Pomfrey puts a potion to my lips and I swallow it with my sobs. The ache of loss in my chest that has been festering for days simmers away till I feel hollow, lethargy rising up in its wake and my eyes drift closed. And though I sleep and I don't dream, the pain persists, and for a reason I can't explain, I'm glad it does


End file.
